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Arsenal Analysis – Ozil’s brilliant stats in 2015

How Mesut Ozil has fared since returning from his ligament injury? by SE

Mesut Ozil returned to action during Arsenal’s 3-0 home win over Stoke City in the early part of January, after recovering from the knee ligament injury he suffered at Stamford Bridge last October.

Since returning to action, the German playmaker has looked a better player than he was at the beginning of this season. He seems to have been invigorated by the 3-month layoff he endured while nursing the ligament injury, and has had a positive impact on Arsenal’s Barclays Premier League campaign and progression into the last four of this season’s FA Cup, where they will be facing Reading in April. In this article, we take a closer look at how the former Los Blancos playmaker has fared since returning to action for the Gunners.

Ozil has averaged a pass accuracy of over 85% in the 8 Premier League games he has played in since returning to action. During the same period: the 26-year old German has created 21 goal scoring chances, averaging close to 3 chances per game. Ozil has also completed his fair share of take-ons, beating defenders with his trickery and movement; the Arsenal playmaker has had a take-on success rate of 67% in close to 10-and-a half-hours of Premier League action. The German has come up with a couple of league goals too, although none of those goals have directly resulted in earning points for his team.

In the 3 FA Cup games against Brighton, Middlesborough and Manchester United, Ozil’s form has been equally good as his league form. He has averaged a pass accuracy of 89% in the cup competition, in addition to completing 6 of his 10 attempted take-ons. He also scored a goal for Arsenal against Brighton in the 4th round of the FA Cup.

Overall, it has been a good couple of months for Ozil since returning to action from his ligament injury. His return has coincided with Arsenal enjoying very good results in the league, as well as in the FA Cup. The only real negativity to Ozil’s return has been his failure to stand up in the big games against Manchester United in the FA Cup and AS Monaco in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League at the Emirates. Ozil’s performances, with Arsenal yet to face the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and the Red Devils in the second round of Premier League fixtures, will be crucial to his side’s chances of winning those games.

It’s true he is getting better, but Santi was doing exceedingly well and Wenger sacrificed him for Mesut. Santi in the role would be more effective than Ozil, honestly. Santi would score more goals there too. Ozil hardly shoots, and it’s wayward when he does.

agreed about santi, was far more effective in that role, i imagine wenger is trying to bed mesut into that role to prepare for the future as santi is 30 an might be off
its good management but in the biggest games? hmmm

Lets not forget he was in the worst games of the year. Dortmund and Tottenham. This is my biggest problem with Wenger. He doesn’t know how to pick a squad and sub the right players. I don’t want to knock Ozil. Wenger can’t figure out how to use everybody.

Santi has quick to get out of trouble hence you retards say he did exceedingly well. most of his moves are in our own half, he creates nothing going forward,except scoring penalties and assisting goals via setpieces. other than that he will just retain the ball majestically in our own half. that is why I do not mind him next to le coq with ozil forward. ozil is our best player now alongside olivier. he has intent of creating chances and moving the ball forward, not like santi who passes sideways. how many games did arsenal win with cazorla as our no.10? and how many games has arsenal won with ozil as our no.10? how many chances did cazorla create and how many goals did we score with him as our no.10? compare the goals arsenal has scored with ozil in that position and that of cazorla.

IMO he is just lacking in something (not just head chicken running around or being defensive) but something else I can’t quiet put my finger on. Perhaps when we bought him for £42 mil the fact that I didn’t know his game, probably meant I and others expected him to be a game changer Capable of directing the game. But his not..that’s all. A very good player though who has his place as long as it’s earnt on merit (like every other player).

I know we love our stats here but they never tell the whole picture. Stats are used always to prove a preferred point.

To be frank, I’ve never judged Ozil based on how much we got him. But it rather hurts me so terribly when I get to think he’s seemingly enjoying some preferential treatment simply becuz of his price tag.

It’s not about the price tag. It’s this notion of people calling him the only world class player we have, the best no10 in the world, our best and most important player blah blah.. When a player is being hyped and talked up like that while his performances are not backing those claims then there is where some of us start questioning him.

When he is our highest paid player (on about £160,000 a week) and players that cost £0-16 million and on about (£50,000 to £80,000 a week) are out performing him game after game then some of us keep struggling and scrutching our head.

The way I see it Ozil is great with space around him. He also has the best vision on the team as he can see things before they happen. That is a gift few have.
To get the best of him I think we have to be so rock solid in the back that every counter is thwarted by Coq and CB’s. If we had that then the space is there as the other team has committed players up the pitch while Ozil can see nothing but green ahead of him. It all starts at the back.

I have two players I have been surprised this season (with Coquelin and Giroud going without saying) : Monreal and Bellerin. These two are leaps and bounds from what I expected from them this season in all honesty. They had to fill the gaps and they did it absolutely amazing.
You will say, what about Cazorla? Nothing. He’s the best of the bunch and I was waiting for the moment when he will start playing matching his talent. This is no surprise for me.
Now, Ozil. If you look carefully you will see how Ozil is changing as a player. Not sure if it is the age or the tougher treatment he receives but he changes as a player. Runs more, dares to put the foot and very often plays 90 minutes. He probably got the memo from Wenger saying that we are not Madrid, no Ronaldo, no Alonso, no Di Maria so he will have to get his balls by actually attacking the opponent. Just watch and see. He should be in top form from the spring on.

Özil is a great player, don’t care what anyone says. Bar the first leg at Monaco, he’s been excellent since returning, no matter what these ‘pundits’ tell you.

The problem is, he did play that first leg against Monaco, and couldn’t string a pass together for the entire game. Özil has his off days, the whole team was off that day, can’t just blame him. On the whole, he is one of our best players.

£42.5m? I don’t mind, it’s been paid now, and our squad has improved as a result. Not many PL clubs can say that about their big money signings. United certainly can’t, Liverpool don’t have any big signings, City haven’t spent well in years. As for Chelsea, Costa and Fabregas have been brilliant, but let’s not forget about the £50m Torres cost. I think the signing of Özil stands as one of the best big money signings in recent years when compared to this lot.

Sorry to be a party pooper but this is getting cringeworthy. I have never seen an Arsenal era where STATs have been at the forefront of everything. But since we signed Ozil we have gone stat crazy, it’s not about observing a player during each match using your eyes. Now what you see with your naked eye during any match is being made irrelevant, we are being told to not trust our own eyes and judgement to make an opinion about any player during and after a game. All we are told to do now is disregard your own observation and go with what the STATs brigade tell you.

What has happened to the times before when we hardly gave a monkeys about these distorted stats, all of a sudden we are looking at stats that don’t tell you anything that matters, the only stats we we were shown after each games were; possession, goals scored, shots made, clear cut chances, assists, corners, yellow cards, red cards.

But since last season people are coming up with all sorts of stats, Stats like (Who breathed more, Who jogged better, Who had the best throw ins, Who had the best curry, Whose hair looks better etc lol).

I have always trusted my own eyes, observations and intuition when watching a match and observing players. If fullback, winger and midfielder does not track back after an attack breaks down I should then wait for the Stats people to convince me that what I am seeing is not there? If Our Mertesacker keeps pushing so far up the pitch, getting skinned due to his lack of pace and being out of position then no stat fanatic will convice me that what I see is not there.

Since last season Stats are what we now have to look at, don’t even try to believe your own eyes. Smh..

modern game, stats are more imnportant. and with ozil he looks languid, maybe lazy, so to the foolish eye and cheap pundit, he is easily bashed.
watch the games back and many goalscoring opportunities, many assist etc are started by mesut. you don’t notice it usually -.-

Stats are more prevalent because the technology that enables it are more accessible with new performance tracking & capture methods and metrics continuosly appearing and evolving.

A heat map on its own is no good as it shows someone ran around a lot. The no. Of completed passes equally useless (they could be 2 ft back or side passes – per!). The no. If assists might hide a players lack of confidence/ability to score themselves – no names here )..

All I’m saying is, is that for a clearer picture to be arrived upon in relation to a players performance is that the metrics would have to be combined in the analysis.

All that said, always believe your senses and your mind first as it is still the best method of player measurement, as it is with all the things that we can observe.

You rightly make a big deal out of technology and modern management tools so not sure why you want to relegate stats to a trivial matter and of little import. The eyes are clearly and obviously not the irrefutable means of assessing a player’s performance (Scholes: Ozil poor Nicholas: Ozil magnificent). If half the fans rate Ozil’s performances and half deride them but the stats support the former then what conclusion would the reasonable neutral be forced to make?

And yes stats are crude and can be badly used but far cleverer people than anyone on here is analysing a lot more than the headline numbers. You cannot undermine this by flagging up individual aspects and one-off incidents – every man and his dog understands why PM has a 90%+ pass success. His job is to produce very low risk passes out from the back – jeez imagine the noise on here if he started to bissect the opponents team with 40 yard Alonso laser passes. And you can’t sensibly latch on to Ozil’s decision to cross instead of pass and conclude it is due to a lack of confidence. A 100+ assists in the last 5 years tell us he has confidence but he may have made the wrong decision in that particular incidence although if Theo had taken the chance and volleyed it in to the net we would still be talking about it now for different reasons.

Love ’em or loathe ’em stats are a big part of the game nowadays. All clubs spend a lot of time and money doing far more elaborate statistical modelling than then the headline grabber stats that SSN sticks up on its screen every 5 minutes. And whilst there is plenty of random influences on a game of football it can essentially be reduced mathematically to provide useful information.

Every lawyer or police officer in the world will tell you that eye-witness testimony is by far the least reliable evidence, so whilst you are happy to “believe your own eyes” it is still a subjective judgement at best. We all have sub-conscious preferences and biases remembering every good moment from our favourite players a lot more vividly than their errors. The converse holds true if we don’t like a player.